The National Park Service has completed its largest wetland restoration project in Yosemite.
The project culminates an over seven-year collaboration between the NPS, the U.S. Forest Service, American Rivers, and Yosemite Conservancy to restore Ackerson Meadow to its original state.
Ackerson Meadow is the largest meadow in Yosemite National Park, according to the NPS. However, agriculture and other activities degraded it for over a century, resulting in an erosion gully that spanned 2 miles, 14 feet deep, and 100 feet wide. The gully drained 90 acres of wetlands from Ackerson and continued to destroy more.
But the NPS and its partners returned wetlands to Ackerson Meadow. Restoration began in late 2023 after consulting with Indigenous communities in 2017 and planning the project from 2018 to 2022. The team filled the eroded meadow with locally sourced soil and woodchips, then revegetated it with native plants, completing this process in June 2025.
Now, Ackerson Meadow is on its way to thriving once more. Repairing the erosion gully immediately returned self-sustaining hydrologic function to the 230-acre area, the NPS explained, which supports water security, increases groundwater storage, and more.
Healthy wetlands support our health by storing and filtering water, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. These ecosystems also sequester carbon and increase resilience to extreme weather events like droughts, floods, and wildfires.
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Restoring wetlands to Ackerson mitigates the impacts of these events for communities living downstream in Turlock, Modesto, and other cities, the NPS shared.
Wetlands serve as crucial habitats as well. Ackerson, for example, supports multiple endangered species, including the great gray owl, little willow flycatcher, northwestern pond turtle, and Pacific fisher. Experts are studying these species and comparing their presence before and after restoration in the area.
"The park's mission is to preserve and protect these lands for future generations," wildlife biologist Ninette Daniele said in a video about the project. "Yosemite is doing a lot of really good restoration work and helping this land heal on an ecosystem level."
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